Note 700 — Chapter X · THE EARLDOM OF ESSEX.

"Willelmi de Say et Galfridi de Mandeville, qui apud Borewelle interfecti fuerunt" (Chron. Ram., App. p. 347).

[701] "Isto itaque tali modo ad extrema deducto, nox quædam et horror omnes regis adversarios implevit, quique ex dissensione a Galfrido exorta regis annisum maxime infirmari putabant, nunc, eo interfecto, liberiorem et ad se perturbandum, ut res se habebat, expediorem fore æstimabant" (Gesta, p. 104). "Sicque Dei judicio patriæ vastatore sublato, virtus bellatorum qui secum manum ad perniciem miserorum firmaverunt plurimum labefacta est, cognoscentes Dominum Christum fideli suo Regi de hostibus dare triumphum, et adversantes ei potenter elidere, ad hoc expavit cor inimicorum illius" (Historia Eliensis, p. 628).

[702] "Quod post dilationes, non sine difficultate, tandem invitus fecit; locum enim illum et vicinas ejus partes multum dilexerat. Prophani milites recedunt cum iniquo satellite" (Chron. Ram., p. 332).

[703] "Eodem quoque anno, Ernulfus filius comitis, qui post mortem patris ecclesiam incastellatam retinebat, captus est et in exilium fugatus" (Gervase, i. 129. Cf. Hen. Hunt.).

[704] "Cujus princeps militum ab equo corruens effuso cerebro spiritum exhalavit" (ibid.).

[705] "Magister autem peditum suorum, qui plus cæteris solitus erat ecclesias concremare et frangere, dum mare transiret cum uxore sua, ut multi perhibuerant, navis immobilis facta est. Quod monstrum nautis stupentibus et sorte data rei causam inquirentibus, sors cecidit super eum. Quod cum ille totis viribus, nec mirum, contradiceret, secundo et tertio sors jacta in eum devenit: formidantibus igitur nautis positus est in cymbam parvulam ipse et uxor ejus et eorum pecunia nequiter adquisita, ut cum illis esset in perditione; quo facto, navis ut prius maria libera sulcavit, cymba vero in voragine subsistens circumducta et absorpta est" (Hen. Hunt.).

[706] There is abundant evidence that the two names are used indifferently.

[707] Burke's Extinct Peerage. So also Dr. Stubbs.

[708] Harl. Cart., 84. C. 4. The charter being attested by Thomas the Chancellor must be previous to August, 1158, as it passed at Westminster. It has a rather unusual set of witnesses.

[709] This charter may fairly be dated 1157-1158, on the following grounds. It speaks of Warine fitz Gerold as the king's chamberlain, and as living. But he died in the summer of 1158. It is, however, subsequent to Henry's accession, because it was not till after that event that Fitz Gerold was enfeoffed in Sawbridgeworth (Liber Niger), and also subsequent to 1155, because Geoffrey occurs as earl. But as Maurice (de Tiretei) was not sheriff, within these limits, till Michaelmas, 1157, we obtain the date 1157-1158.

[710] Sloane Cart., xxxii. 64.

[711] Liber Niger (ed. 1774), p. 326. The return of the Barony of Helion (p. 242), in which an Ernulf de Mandeville appears as holding half a knight's fee in Bumsted (Helion), is of later date.

[712] Rot. Pip., 1 Ric. I. The "Ernald de Magneville" who was among the Crusaders that reached Acre in June, 1191, may have been a younger son of the disinherited Ernald, if the latter was then dead. An Ernulf de Mandeville is found among the witnesses to a star of Abraham fitz Muriel (1214), granting a house in Westcheap to Geoffrey "de Mandeville," Earl of Essex and Gloucester.

[713] Rot. Pip., 3 John.

[714] Testa, p. 142 b.

[715] See, for the exceptionally heavy alienations in this county (some £440 a year), the Pipe-Roll of 2 Henry II., p. 57.

[716] Dugdale MS., 15 (H) fol. 129.

[717] "Feod[um] Rad[ulfi] de Nuers iiii. milites" (Liber Niger).

[718] Compare them with the preceding charter of Earl Geoffrey.

[719] Dugdale MS., ut supra.

[720] William's succession to Otwel suggests that they were somehow related to William fitz Otuel (p. 169).

[721] With this charter of Earl William may be compared another (Cart. Cott., x. 1), in which he confirms to Westminster Abbey the church of Sawbridgeworth. The witnesses are "Willielmo de Ver, Asculfo Capellano, Ricardo de Vercorol, Willelmo de Lisoris, David de Jarpouilla, Symone fratre eius, Osberto filio Ricardi, Osberto de sancto Claro, Willelmo de Norhala, Johanne de Rochella, Eustachio Camerario, Rogero et Simone clericis Abbatis West'." The second and third witnesses are also found attesting the earl's charter to the nuns of Greenfield (see p. 169). Compare further "A charter of William, Earl of Essex" (Eng. Hist. Review, April, 1891). "Asculfus (or Hasculfus) Capellanus" was the hero of the adventure, on the earl's death, thus related by Dugdale: "A chaplain of the earl's, called Hasculf, took out his best saddle-horse in the night, and rode to Chicksand, where the Countess Rohese then resided," etc., etc.

[722] This is a good instance of the custom, so constantly met with in Domesday, by which a house in a county town was attached to a manor.

[723] Dugdale MS., ut supra.

[724] Dodsworth MS., vii. fol. 299.

[725] Ibid.

[726] Ibid., xxx. fol. 104.

[727] "Alano de Matem" is among them (cf. p. 89).

[728] "Willelmus de Mandevill tenet in Kaingham feodum unius militis de feod[o] Comitis Hereford[ie]" (Testa, pp. 102 a, 106 a).

[729] Lansdowne MS., 865, fol. 118 dors.; Harl. MS., 154, fol. 45.

[730] Lansdowne MS., 229, fol. 123 b. This note is followed by one of the charter by which the Empress confirmed Humfrey de Bohun in his post of Dapifer, and of which the original is still extant among the Duchy of Lancaster Royal Charters (Pipe-Roll Society: Ancient Charters, p. 45).

[731] See Appendix BB.

[732] It was, I believe, duly entered in the lost volume of the Great Coucher.

[733] "Sui" omitted in Rawlinson MS.

[734] "Dabrichteswordam" (Rawlinson).

[735] R. Diceto, p. 531.

[736] (1) To the church of St. Jean d'Angely (Canterbury); (2) to Christchurch, Canterbury (Dover); (3) to St. Mary's Abbey, Leicester (Dover); (4) to Earl Aubrey (Dover) (Court and Itinerary of Henry II., pp. 15, 16).

[737] It is true that the charter to Geoffrey Ridel (Appendix BB) proves that Geoffrey de Mandeville the younger enjoyed, at the court of the Empress, the title of Earl of Essex. But the same charter proves that Henry did not hold himself bound by his mother's charters or deeds.

[738] "Do et concedo quod sit Comes de ... et habeat inde tertium denarium sicut comes debet habere."

[739] It is one of the mysteries of the Pipe-Rolls that no such payment to the earl is to be traced on them, though the grant is quite unmistakable in its terms. See Appendix H.

[740] The "unde" of this charter answers to the "inde" in the charters to Earl Aubrey.

[741] See Appendix H.

[742] See, for instance, survivals of them in the charters of Henry I. to Christchurch, Canterbury, and of Henry II. to Oxford. The former runs, "on strande and on stream, on wudan and on feldan" (Campbell Charter, xxix. 5); the latter, "by water and by stronde, by Gode (sic) and by londe" (Hearne's Liber Niger, Appendix).

The formula "cum omnibus ad hoc rebus rite pertinentibus, sive litorum, sive camporum, agrorum, saltuumve" (Kemble, Cod. Dipl., No. 425; Earle, Land Charters, p. 186), suggested to Prof. Maitland (Select Pleas in Manorial Courts) a connection with the "leet" through the "litus" of early Teutonic law, but Mr. W. H. Stevenson, correcting him, observed (Academy, June 29, 1889) that litorum referred to the seashore at Reculver (with which this grant deals). Both these distinguished scholars are mistaken, for the words only render the general formula: "by lande and by strande ('litorum'), by wode and by felde." So for instance—

Thus we have "in bosco et plano ... infra burgum et extra" (supra, p. 236). See also pp. 286, 314, 381.

[743] Liber Niger (1774), i. 239.

[744] Angevin Kings, ii. 144.

[745] The inheritance was in dispute for some time between his aunt's younger son and the two daughters and co-heirs of her elder son deceased. As the latter were eventually successful in their claim, there was no one heir to whom the earldom could pass, as of right, under the charter of 1156 (accepting it as representing a limitation to heirs whatsoever). I have, however, elsewhere suggested (Pipe-Roll Society: Ancient Charters, p. 99) that the salvo to the elder of the two daughters of her antenatio may have been connected with a claim to the dignity by her husband, in her right.